The present invention relates to rescue equipment for submarine vehicles which include a gas generator, which in turn utilizes a chemical and/or catalytic reaction of a liquid medium for producing a gas, the gas establishes the requisite buoyancy for example in emergency cases or otherwise. Particularly the invention relates to equipment of such type, wherein a liquidous reactant is forced into a reaction chamber by means of a propelling gas in order to obtain the reaction.
Equipment of the type to be improved by the present invention is disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. No. 3,942,456. Generally speaking, rescue equipment of the type to which the invention pertains is or should be part of the equipment of a submarine vehicle to be put into use in an emergency situation, when the vehicle is submerged. The purpose is to develop a pressurized gas which is capable of forcing the water out of the diving compartments and ballast tanks, because for example the usual pumping equipment does not work. This way, buoyancy is developed on an ad hoc basis, having the purpose to cause the vehicle to surface in the shortest possible time.
In furtherance of the objective a liquidous medium, such as hydrazine or the like, is normally contained in a particular container, and that container is physically connected to a source of pressurized gas, but being normally separated therefrom. In the case of an emergency the pressurized gas causes that liquidous medium to be forced into and through a reaction chamber being filled with a particular catalyst. The gas used for such a purpose is usually nitrogen or helium, stored in an appropriately designed high-pressure vessel.
Of course, it has to be realized, that the gas that is developed through the catalytic decomposition, has to work against the water pressure in the dive cells or ballast tanks and that water in turn has to be moved out of the vehicle into the surrounding sea so that the work to be performed depends on the depth and the static sea pressure around the vehicle. Obviously the deeper the vehicle has dived, the higher that force has to be. The above mentioned patent suggests a compensation of that depth pressure by causing the container for the liquidous medium to be decomposed, to be subjected to the pressure of the surrounding water. In other words, this emergency equipment is depth dependently pressurized, so that the developed gas pressure is simply added on and will thus be effective independently from the surrounding water pressure.